Hot Wokmaster, Ultimo

Peking duck pancake

"Peking duck for lunch? That's all we're having? Isn't that a little, ah, excessive?" I ask increduously.

"Omigod, you haven't lived! I used to do it all the time. It's fantastic!" comes the reply.

That's disgusting. But okay. You twisted my arm.


Complimentary house soup

We head to Oriental Wokmaster, the Chinese bbq shop I've walked past hundreds of times on Broadway but never ventured in. Whole ducks glisten and strips of barbecue pork beckon from the window. It's surprisingly busy during lunch hour, and I'm somewhat dizzied yet tempted by the array of extra menu options plastered all over the walls on neat rectangles of white butchers paper. The menu is stomach-defying. There are 298 different dishes on the printed menu alone.

Service is brusque and somewhat devoid of English, but two steaming bowls of complimentary house soup more than make amends. It's a sweet broth filled with rustic chunks of carrot and meaty pork bones that demand to be sucked and prodded and nibbled clean.


Green onions and hoi sin sauce

Two courses of Peking duck costs a very affordable $29.80 here. Our Peking duck pancakes take about twenty minutes to arrive, a DIY assembly involving pancakes, crispy duck skin, spiky batons of green onion, a spear of cucumber and a smear of sweet tangy hoi sin sauce.


Pancakes


Peking duck on prawn crackers

There's a fair bit of duck meat attached to the skin. The skin isn't quite as crispy as I've had before, but the duck flesh is moist and juicy albeit somewhat mild in flavour. We gobble down six pancakes each. It's surprisingly easy to do once you get the hang of it.


Duck sang choy bow

Our second dish is a duck sang choy bow. The duck flesh is chopped into tiny cubes and mixed with a fairly generous amount of water chestnuts, fried vermicelli and bits of shiitake mushroom. There's a generous pile within the lettuce leaf, so much so I have to eat two-thirds of the filling with chopsticks before even attempting to bundle up the lettuce leaf.

It's a decadent lunch but thoroughly enjoyed. One dish down, 297 to go.


Hot Wokmaster
157 Broadway, Ultimo, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9281 8366

Open 7 days 11am-11pm

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